I thought you might enjoy this old Mad About You clip. The adult-tasting-breastmilk gag isn't that original (it's one we talked about in this podcast on breastfeeding in the movies), but I did think the use of that pump was pretty funny!
Last year I posted about a great new video on latch-on. I've posted it below, and a better quality version is here.
Latch, as you know, is the heart of the matter when it comes to breastfeeding. A good latch can make the difference between a painful and painless feeding. And latch affects babies' ability to get enough milk, too.
But for so many of us it's a real struggle. That's why I was so happy to see this short video from Ameda. It's up to date, emphasizes skin to skin and babies' natural reflexes, and does a great job of showing the 'asymmetrical latch.'
Ameda was kind enough to give me six of these DVDs to give away. They'd be a great tool in childbirth and breastfeeding classes, and breastfeeding support groups.
To enter to win one, please leave a comment below by May 27th, 2009. U.S. addresses only, please. Winners will be chosen using random.org, and announced in the comments section of this post.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Michael Pollan | ||||
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Breastfeeding made a cameo appearance on the Colbert Report on Wednesday night, in an interview with Michael Pollan. And it isn't the first time breastmilk (kind of) has been on the show.
In the age of hands-free pumping and adapters for your car's cigarette lighter, hand expressing is pretty much a lost art in this country. But talk to any mother who pumped before the early '90's, and you might find that her pump was her hand.
Manual expression can still come in (ahem) handy, even if you have a pump. If you get very engorged, hand expressing often works better than a pump. If you can't use your pump (on a plane with no battery pack, for example), it's great to know how to do it. If you have a really fast let down and need to express before getting your baby latched on, hand expressing is so much more convenient than the pump. And sometimes it can be nice to be able to get a little milk out before your baby latches on.
Below are two videos that show you how. The first is the Marmet technique (shown at About.com), and the second is the technique used at Stanford Hospital. You'll notice that the hand placement and motions are different. I think that both can work, and you may want to try both before settling on one.
At Stanford Hospital, the lactation consultants teach each mother how to hand express, and encourage them to do it after every feeding while in the hospital. They then teach the moms how to spoon feed the colostrum to their babies. This appears to help mothers' milk come in sooner, and I would guess that it helps reduce babies' weight loss. At a minimum, it teaches moms this really useful skill.
Have any of you had any luck hand expressing? Did anyone teach you how?
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This one has been around for a while, but I still think it's pretty funny! I posted another great one a while back on nursing in public.
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Two new bills in the California legislature would require insurance companies to pay for breastfeeding help.
AB 513 requires the rental of breastpumps and for consultation with board-certified lactation consultants. AB 514 (not amended to reflect this yet) requires employers to provide two paid 20 minute breaks for mothers to pump at work.
California law currently requires employers to provide a reasonable amount of unpaid break time and a sanitary place to pump. It looks like the intent of provision giving mothers access to rental pumps is to help them pump at work, since there's no mention of medical necessity. As far as I know, these would be the first laws of their kind in the U.S. For more information on breastfeeding and the law, check out this podcast. The video below makes the argument for these changes to the law.
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To see the add, (opens in player) click here.
And there are radio ads, too.
This ad is from the National Health Service in the UK. I like how comfortable the mom on the right is nursing in the park, how skeptical the mom on the left is initially, and how the whole conversation seems like it could actually happen.
Mom to mom encouragement and support is so important, and this ad really showcases that.
I wish we were as good as Scotland, Australia, and the U.K. when it comes to breastfeeding ads.
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I just couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this story on Nightline.*
Salma Hayek, UNICEF spokesperson, was in Sierra Leone to promote a tetanus vaccine program in a country where one in five children die before the age of five. 21% of those deaths are due to tetanus. Another reason for the high mortality rate is lack of breastfeeding.
In one scene, Salma nurses a little baby (her own is now over a year). There is a close enough view that I could count swallows. She then tells the story of her great grandmother in Mexico nursing the baby of a stranger who didn't have enough milk.
I'm blown away that this was on network tv.
*Quick warning that it shows a very sad scene of a baby dying from a tetanus infection. The breastfeeding part of the story occurs later in the piece.
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Here is the famed Mr. Rogers nursing clip! I've been trying to find this one for so long I was beginning to wonder if it was an urban legend. Think you could show this much skin on PBS today? Oops! I'm informed that PBS does still show this episode.
You'll find many more videos, including a number from Sesame Street, here.
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This clip of my blogging buddy Andi Silverman was on a few weeks ago, but it's still worth a look. I thought she did a great job.
The funniest question - and I seem to hear it all the time now - is the one that goes: "Why would someone want to put something so intimate on the web?" The question just highlights how hard a time we have seeing breasts as anything other than sexual. Is bottle feeding intimate? Intimate enough to be banned from the web?
There are so many answers to that question, but I guess my answer would be: Feeding a baby, however you do it, takes about 7 or 8 hours a day. That's a full workday, and you even do it at all hours of the night. If you're a parent, and feeding - however you do it - is one of the biggest parts of the job, isn't it the perfect profile picture?
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